Methyl Iodide Controversy: Warning About Strawberry Field Chemical Ignored

The deci­sion to increase expo­sure lev­els has caused a rift within the DPR, a little-known but pow­er­ful agency that over­sees a major seg­ment of the state’s multibillion-dollar farm­ing indus­try. In inter­views, all eight peer-review sci­en­tists said their warn­ings and sci­en­tific analy­sis of the health risks of methyl iodide appear to have been disregarded.

“I’ve never seen any­thing like this,” said Ron Melnick, a panel mem­ber and sci­en­tist at the National Institutes of Health, who has par­tic­i­pated in sim­i­lar assess­ments in the past. “Why have some­one review a doc­u­ment when you’re just going to ignore it?”

Thousands of Californians live, work or play within a stone’s throw of the state’s straw­berry fields. Thousands more do the hands-on field work that sup­plies super­mar­kets across the coun­try, fuel­ing a $2 bil­lion industry.

Currently, most California straw­berry grow­ers rely on a fumi­gant called methyl bro­mide. But that chem­i­cal is being phased out under an inter­na­tional treaty because it dam­ages the ozone layer.

Conventional straw­berry grow­ers have spent a decade look­ing for a viable alter­na­tive and have turned up only one: methyl iodide. Under the new reg­u­la­tion, farm­ers would use the chem­i­cal as a fumi­gant to ster­il­ize the soil before the plants go in.

Lab tests involv­ing rats and rab­bits show methyl iodide can cause thy­roid can­cer and mis­car­riages. But sci­en­tists say methyl iodide is also a neu­ro­toxin. Although this research is less well-developed, case stud­ies of peo­ple who were acci­den­tally exposed to methyl iodide show “chronic, irre­versible brain dam­age,” accord­ing to John Froines, a chemist at UCLA who chaired the inde­pen­dent review panel.

Amid this evi­dence, sci­en­tists at the DPR rec­om­mended a max­i­mum expo­sure of .8 parts per bil­lion for farm­work­ers. State reg­u­la­tors are propos­ing 96 parts per bil­lion, over an eight-hour day.

Scientists on the review panel said methyl iodide hasn’t been suf­fi­ciently stud­ied to jus­tify the larger amount. They’re con­cerned about dam­age the fumi­gant could inflict on devel­op­ing brains in infants and chil­dren, includ­ing sub­tle changes to IQ, or behav­ioral changes that might take years to detect.

Because of these con­cerns, the sci­en­tists added an extra “uncer­tainty fac­tor” to their cal­cu­la­tions, which low­ered rec­om­mended expo­sure lev­els by a fac­tor of ten.

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